Spain blocks Polymarket and Kalshi over missing gambling licences

Spain has temporarily blocked US-based prediction markets Polymarket and Kalshi for operating without a gambling licence, with a three-to-four month suspension while the Consumer Rights Ministry investigates. Spain joins France, Belgium, Poland, Italy, and the Netherlands in treating prediction markets as unlicensed gambling. India, Brazil, and Indonesia have also issued bans recently. The crackdown highlights a sharp divergence between European regulators — who treat uncertain-outcome wagers as gambling regardless of structure — and the US, where Kalshi operates as a CFTC-regulated event-contracts venue. There is no harmonised EU framework for event contracts, leaving each member state to apply its own rules.